ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Wednesday hailed rally of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Peshawar Tuesday, terming it a good omen for the mainstream politics.
In a tweet, the minister said that Pakistan needed federal parties and PML-N should also come out of central Punjab, adding that unfortunately the leadership of both parties had no agenda. “Politics confined to region will end as no party could survive on mere criticism,” he maintained.
The minister said instead of trying to topple the government they should first learn to stand on their own feet and that both the parties should give their suggestions for major reforms in the country.
Meanwhile, Fawad noted that for the first time under the Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals Act 2021, working journalists in Pakistan had been given the rights being enjoyed by the journalists in advanced democracies.
He said this while addressing here at the signing ceremony of the Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals Act 2021. The minister explained that in preparation of the act, consultations were held with all journalist groups including journalist organisations and that the responsibility of the government and the Ministry of Information was to stand behind the working journalists.
He pointed out that a section in Pakistan had been trying to give the impression that the press was not free here. However, he emphasised that if there was no free press in Pakistan then there was no free press anywhere in the world.
Fawad contended, “When it comes to the press freedom, we compare ourselves not with the third world and the Muslim world but with the first world. We have no laws of defamation, so we have more freedom of the press than the first world”.
He argued that another aspect was that these freedoms were reserved for the media tycoons and working journalists were not getting the rights they should have been given. He noted the government through the new act had tried to give due rights to working journalists under the Media Professionals Act.
